Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

113 reviews

hazelbynature's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Grief, Hate crime, Outing, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Deadnaming, Gore, Miscarriage, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexism, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

sundayfever's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was an incredible read. A book written for trans people, not to explain trans people to the world. Deeply flawed but loveable characters who make mistakes and hurt each other, but with an undercurrent of love. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Transphobia, Infidelity, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Hate crime

Moderate: Abortion, Deadnaming, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Racism, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Toxic relationship

fisheyedfish's review against another edition

emotional funny informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

DNF 
Even halfway through it still felt like a slog. I found myself caring more about the present story but annoyed by the constant flashbacks. 
As a nonbinary person, I was annoyed that the author kept the characters very binary. They were either a man or a woman with no allowance for something in between or discussion of gender as a spectrum. I read Ames/Amy as a genderfluid person but the author and the other characters wanted to shove them in a box.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Sexism

Minor: Outing

lareinamags's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Lesbophobia, Dysphoria, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Outing, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Transphobia, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Suicide

xosirenox's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Outing, Toxic relationship, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Pregnancy, and Transphobia

Moderate: Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Abortion, and Suicidal thoughts

shortstackz's review against another edition

challenging emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Parenthood looks and means something different to everyone, and Detransition, Baby dives into what that might look like to a cis woman, a trans woman, and a former trans woman. We take a dual viewpoint from Reese, a trans woman, and Ames, a former trans woman. Exploring how their experience of gender has shaped their views of parenthood. The dual timeline simultaneously covers the years across Reese and Amy's romantic relationship, and the weeks following Ames discovering he has gotten Katrina pregnant. I lov d that the story centered on the hopes and dreams of trans women without saying away from their struggles.

I am a cis woman, of white and Asian decent, which is the lens I was reading this through. Ames brought an interesting discussion of gender and gave me a better understanding of gender dysphoria and maybe the reasons someone would choose to live as their birth gender. The dual timeline of Reese and Ames brings so much light to the daily joys of trans life, which I think will help a lot of cis readers to grow alongside Katrina. I think this would have been strengthened from including vignets or interludes from Katrina's perspective, which could have shown how she was navigating her own journey through parental identity. Katrina makes choices. Those choices are, interesting? I have no idea how she jumps to them other than plot. 

The characters of Reese and Ames are so well developed that the lack of development in Katrina stands out as our main cast of 3. Peters prose is witty, funny, and easy to read. There are fun pop culture references thrown in throughout the pages, and I loved the nuanced gender conversations that occured. I wish Katrina's motivations were more clear to the reader, not front and center but in vignettes scattered throughout. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Deadnaming, and Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Ableism, Drug use, and Gaslighting

aquakirst's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Infertility, Grief, Abortion, Miscarriage, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Outing, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, and Transphobia

Moderate: Car accident and Drug use

songofsyenite's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Domestic abuse

who_dat_beasht's review against another edition

tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

this strongly brought up the feeling you get of wanting to shove a fork in your brain after you get a text from a friend saying “well I did the thing 😭😂”, and “the thing” is something they complain about doing every single second of waking life, they proceed to send you multiple drawn out paragraphs/voice notes, it just goes on and on, and they’ll never learn, and actually you don’t know why you’re friends, because they’re a horrible person, but then again so are you, and what would you do without them?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Cursing, Homophobia, Grief, Transphobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Abortion and Pregnancy

zeus_strider's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I find it hard to describe this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it but wouldn't recommend lightly.

This book uses the word

"transsexual"

a lot and frankly a lot of slurs, and if that is going to upset you I might recommend you skip this one.

With that being said this is a book about two terrible people who engage in self-destructive behavior that shows little indication of changing by the end of the book, Reese throws herself into abusive relationships seeking validation, 
while Ames seeks to disassociate themselves because the pain of being present is too much for them to bear.

As a queer individual myself it is interesting to see queer characters who they themselves are not allies as counterintuitive as it is it does happen, Reese in particular is downright hateful of those around her, of those in her community and those of adjacenting communities, and quite frankly anyone who might treat her decently, I suspect that she believes everyone to be as hateful as she is which is what causes her to have such disdain in them which at times can be very difficult to read. 

But overall it's very well written and an interesting view into a very different perspective. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Infertility, Sexual content, Dysphoria, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, Abortion, Body shaming, Lesbophobia, Miscarriage, Outing, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Self harm

Moderate: Cultural appropriation and Suicide attempt

Minor: Suicide